Just want to ask everyone's opinions regarding game enemies

[4thcharacter]

Are too much enemy types in some mod a bad thing and would feel like it's suffering from some feature bloat?

[zrrion the insect]

Usually mods with a lot of enemy types don't actually use them well. It is most noticeable in mods that use a lot of imp variants, as they usually just dump all of them at you without regard to what makes the enemies different. But I have seen maps that carefully use a lot of enemy variants to good effect, so I suppose it mostly depends on why the modder added the enemies. If it was variety for variety 's sake that is bad, but monsters added because they are the best monster for what the mapper wants to do are okay.

[4thcharacter]

So how about randomizers with lots of different enemy types and several of them are similar to one another?

[Laggy]

If it was variety for variety 's sake that is bad

I don't see any reason why that's bad. Just because different monster stats, attack patters or other kind of gameplay variety might be good doesn't mean aesthetic variety is always bad.
But if the randomizer changes how certain monsters work, it should be careful to not have a chance to spawn something that it will always damage or kill the player in a specific situation. For expample, randomly spawning zombieman bosses with 200 hp and high damage output. A mapper probably decided to teleport you next to a zombieman in a closed area, expecting you just kill it instatly, but if it will always kill you when you reach that area no matter what, it's bad randomization and makes the game depend more on luck than skill.

[Matt]

One of Doom's greatest design strengths is that every single enemy type is very distinct from every other in at least 3 of the following:
- threat level
- colour
- shape and size
- attack type
- intro sound
- combat role

and it all somehow fits together without any major clash in aesthetics.

Not very realistic, if you consider that a crowd of miscellaneous zombies carrying whatever weapons are around should all look and act quite unique resulting in an undifferentiated ugly clashing mess, but it definitely works as a game.

[Reactor]

Not a bad thing at all, if it fits the storyline itself. If not, then ye, it's a bad thing. Imagine Doomguy's face when he is sent to Phobos or Deimos to vanquish the evil demons' invasion, and all of a sudden, Nazis start to attack him...wait a sec...

Half-life 1 did it just right - after a while, the American army becomes the enemy, not just simply the aliens. And later, the American army fights the aliens as well, not just Gordon Freeman. Storywise it's perfectly substantiated, as "da gubbmint" decided to handwave the Black Mesa incident by killing all the survivors, and sending the entire facility up in smoke.
And even later in Opposing Force, the soldiers also need to face their own kind, not just aliens - the evil black operatives, who believe that the army men betrayed their cause and now they also need to be eradicated. You can even witness a graffiti at the first encounter saying "DIE TRAITERZ".

Environment is also a very important thing to take into account. In a level, which takes place down in the sewers, you probably will not put royal guards, just like you would not put zombies into a royal palace level. Doom 3 didn't lavish Z-Sectors on the player during the Hell level either. Asteroid levels wouldn't need humanoid enemies, they'd look mighty stupid floating with you in zero-gravity (not to mention that the vacuum of space would final them in seconds), and stellar enemies won't seem right in Earth levels.

Ammunition replenishment factor is also somewhat important. If the player wields a firearm, to which dead enemies supply the fuel mostly, then it might be wise to put a few of those enemy types to make sure that the player shall have a sufficient supply of ammo. This is especially true at levels, where the player is stripped down to bare fists.

The only exception may be the final level or the second final level. Some games like to use all in-game enemies in said level, like the enemies appear for the (second) final stage to say farewell to the player for one last time

[Oberron]

Sniper: Path of Venegeance's goons are cops (they fire shotguns at you aswell, watch out), corrupt cops (cops in civilian clothes), the Russian mafia (they fire P90s, Ingrams), the Chinese (Don't expect an FPS with goons like these) and the Italian mafia.

[Skelegant]

If you're going to replace one monster with a bunch of randomised variants, it's a good idea to have them drop different stuff (or different amounts of stuff) otherwise it might feel like you're shooting a whole lot of the same thing, thus rendering the randomiser pointless
It's also a good idea to keep the variants as close to the monster they're replacing as possible (not to the point where they're just plain reskins tho) to prevent cheap deaths.
You don't want to spawn in E2M1 armed with only a pistol facing a mob of railgun-wielding beefcakes.
Stronger monsters like the demon shouldn't be made too much powerful, unless you're planning on buffing the weapons up too.

just my 2 cents

[BFG]

the more enemy types, the better. I like dungeon crawling around maps, never knowing what to bump into.

[4thcharacter]

Thanks for helpful answers, everyone.

I think it's clear that I don't have much problems with basing monsters on level themes or storyline, but mostly about randomizers having too much monster types. I played around with my personal randomizer mod by adding a some stuff and felt like something's amiss, even when making the monsters be as close to the originals that they're replacing for balance and with different drops for each.

[Skelegant]

If it's not a top secret project, maybe you could make a quick video of what you've got so far? Either that or make a list of enemy types, or something. I've done a fair bit of randomiser stuff in my own projects so I might be able to see what needs adjusting.

[4thcharacter]

The ones I seem to have problems are some of the implemented Hexen I-II/Heretic enemies. I experimented by mismashing them with my Colorful Hell+DRLA, and changed nothing from them apart from their height, radius and some stuff the Heretic enemies drop.

The ettins (which in turn sometimes spawns the "chainmail" variant)/centaurs replace demons sometimes, iron liches/slaughtaurs for arachnotrons.

Wendigo (with their HP increased and attack slightly buffed) replaces mancs. Ophidians/medusa/archer lords replace revenants sometimes, afrits are sometimes in place of shotgunners, archer knights, the weaker variant of archer lords replace chaingunners.

Ice and fire imps can sometimes replace zombiemen. Weredragon & Skull wizards can sometimes appear in place of a hell knight, while for barons Shadow Wizards replaces them sometimes.

The Hexen II enemies' behaviors are the same as the ones from Wrath of Cronos, BTW.

[Skelegant]

That seems like an ok amount of monster variety, but if you want to make it look a little less like Grand Central Station you could try adding an extra random spawner to make some variants rarer, like this:

actor zombiemanspawner1 : randomspawner replaces zombieman
{
DropItem "Fireimp"
DropItem "zombiemanspawner2"
}
actor zombiemanspawner2 : randomspawner
{
DropItem "Fireimp"
DropItem "Iceimp"
}

That's obviously a messy way of doing it, but it's easy to adjust til you get it the way you want it.

[TheBadHustlex]

Randomized Enemies are never a great idea. They have to be very similar to each other, or else they might not work because of their placement in the map.

[4thcharacter]

The only monsters that are entirely different from what they're replacing are the archers. The others are similar but with a few twist like the mentioned imps and Skull/Shadow wizards.

That seems like an ok amount of monster variety, but if you want to make it look a little less like Grand Central Station you could try adding an extra random spawner to make some variants rarer, like this:

actor zombiemanspawner1 : randomspawner replaces zombieman
{
DropItem "Fireimp"
DropItem "zombiemanspawner2"
}
actor zombiemanspawner2 : randomspawner
{
DropItem "Fireimp"
DropItem "Iceimp"
}

That's obviously a messy way of doing it, but it's easy to adjust til you get it the way you want it.

Actually, this is how I organize the randomspawners. After looking for a while I think Heretic and Hexen's melee monsters are in need of a buff.